On Wednesday March 16th, from 7.30pm at Tank Gallery in Ladywell Lewisham Council's Empty Property Officer, Nick Long, will take part in a discussion of empty properties in the area, including the Ladywell Playtower, whose potential trustees will explain their ideas for the building.

The meeting has been organised by the Ladywell Village Improvement Group.

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comments:

mollhench
said...

Oh, I do hope they have good plans for the playtower. It saddens me every time I drive past - which is pretty much every day! There are some great buildings in Ladywell - although fewer now they have demolished the art deco adhesives building - great shame. Let's hope new life is breathed into it before long.

A few years ago a local architect who was working with a social enterpise consortium did a presentation at the Telegraph Hill Centre AGM on some really quite exciting plans for the Playtower and that whole building complex to make it into a community building and central activity hub.

All that was needed was, of course, the money and input from LBL. I do wish Lewisham was better at using the Section 106 provisions for extracting funding for relatively small scale and very local improvements. There might have been an opportunity to get concessions from the developers of the Adhesives Factory site.

Speaking of empty properties in Ladywell, the former Nightwatch shop has been renovated (very speedily, it has to be said) and the shop front is looking great. No sign of a tenant yet but hopefully soon.

Yes, I noticed it was looking pretty smart yesterday. Certainly a big transformation, at long last! I hope it's going to be something interesting - that little stretch of Geddes, Nightwatch and Oscars, with El's Kitchen opposite, will set the standard for Ladywell. Shame about the new Morley's Chicken...

I can't make it but is the morleys something that cand be discussed with him? I think there is confusion about whether there is scope to stop it. It really would be a bad move for Ladywell and undo lots of hard work. They are awful shops and always lead to tons of litter.

Also I gear the nightwatch might be another takeaway.

Finally can anu of the empty shops be given over to local artists on short term rents? This was doen int he tea factory in brockley and at least looks nice!

If Nightwatch does turn into another take away, it'll be the smartest take away in town; the shop front is really attractively done, not just a big pane of glass, and now it's a conservation area I doubt they'll be able to alter it, so presumably not of interest to most take away chains.

It really is good to see such an eyesore turned into something nice, and the renovation has (a) been quick and (b) really worked with conservation area principles rather than trying to flout them (La Lanterna, take note).